Beckham laughed. “Sure, that doesn’t mean we’re buying the next seven.”

“I’m heading out early.” Flint sat on the stool he always used in the bar that they’d been coming to for the last five years with the surrounding people who had sat in the same seats on the same nights of the week for the last forever.

“You’re what now?” Beckham looked down his nose at him.

“I’m cutting out early. Eloise wants me to swing by for dinner. She said it’s been too long since I’ve seen my nephew and nieces.” Flint sipped his beer.

“She says that the day after you’ve been over at her house.” Beck took a swig of beer.

“I know. But what can I say? I’m the favorite uncle.” Flint played with the ceramic coaster on the bar top.

“I bet Tad gives better presents.” Maddox elbowed Flint.

“It’s about the presence, not the presents. And I’m not competing with Tad. My brother could buy the whole town if he wanted to.” Eloise’s text message had said something was up and she wanted to talk in person, but he wasn’t going to tell them that.

Half a beer and an hour later, Flint pushed back from the bar and left for his sister’s. The pack lands were a few miles outside of town. The alpha’s house had enough land around it to let the pack have their lunar runs and not risk running into humans. And while the pack didn’t own the land in town and the neighboring town of Spring Ridge, his cousin served as alpha to almost all wolf shifters who lived there. And though most of the pack lived out on the compound, not everyone did. The same held true for the pack’s construction business. Larsen Construction employed most of the pack. Heck, most of the town worked for them too. And their alpha was the head of the construction company.

Flint didn’t want to be around his alpha-cousin Spencer or Spencer’s youngest brother Duncan. They were both embracing their new magical powers of being witches. So were his sisters, mostly. But Eloise was right: he wasn’t going to stay away from any of his nephews or nieces. None of them had shown any signs of being anything but wolf, and even if they did, it wasn’t like they knew any better.

Flint drove under the metal pack sign, and his stomach settled into rocks. He passed the little cluster of condos and drove up the hill to his sister’s place. His mother’s house and the family homestead the alpha lived in were farther up the hill. He couldn’t see either when he parked his truck in Eloise’s driveway. Grass shoot up between piles of snow that had fallen off the roof. The yard was a mixture of abandoned sleds and bikes on the soggy turf. He picked up a little pink bike and brought it up to the covered porch, then squared his shoulders and slowly blinked, building up the courage to deal with his older sister.

“Hey, Uncle Flint is here,” Pike Morris, his brother-in-law, announced to his kids.

He opened the door without knocking. The place looked normal, like a toy bomb had exploded over the living room. Toys were slowly leaking into the kitchen. The meal his brother-in-law was cooking smelled of nirvana—fated mates or not, his sister would have mated Pike for his cooking skills. Most of the pack would have mated Pike for his cooking skills.

“Hey Flint.” Pike got out of the way before two sets of little arms attacked Flint around his legs. “Thanks for coming out.” Pike stirred a pot on the stove. The aroma was enough to make Flint forget why he hadn’t wanted to come.

“Thanks for cooking.” Flint dropped his truck keys in the key bowl on the counter.

“Happens every day around the same time. You’re more than welcome.” Pike moved from the counter to the oven. “Get some plates out, will ya? See if you can find the table underneath the mess over there.”

“Sure.” Flint walked like a zombie, dragging Luna on one leg.

Atlas flung himself upside down on the sofa and settled into watching cartoons. Luna and Atlas were born ten months apart. They weren’t real twins but what the older females in the pack called wolf twins—single births back to back. But they liked to pretend they were twins, like the real twin of their mother and their aunt.

“I’ll do it if I can get Atlas off my leg,” said Flint.

His niece howled with laughter that he’d called her jokingly by her brother’s name. It was a game Flint played with his oldest niece and nephew every time he came over.

He picked up Luna and swung her upside down before setting her on her feet. “When are we going to play baseball again? I was the best back in my elementary school. I can teach you all the moves.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

Luna wiggled the lower half of her body, ran in a circle, and ended up on the sofa next to Atlas. Clearly up to something devious, she turned to her uncle. “I’m Luna, Uncle Flint. Can’t you tell us apart yet?” Luna was laughing, and she whispered something into Atlas’s ear. They both took off running down the hallway.

Flint’s sister came out of the back hallway, baby Milo on her hip. “Where are those two going?” She kissed Pike on the cheek.

“They’re playing the twin card again. Best guess is they’re going to change into matching outfits.” Pike continued his chopping.

“You’re staying after dinner to put their closets back together.” Eloise kissed Flint on the cheek and handed him baby Milo, who was already reaching for his uncle.

“Look at you, what a big cub.” Flint rubbed his stubbly cheek down his nephew’s, sending the baby into hysterical laughter. The little guy was a year and a half old and a fuzz ball of giggles.

Eloise opened the window above the sink to let the steam from the pasta water out.

Flint caught his sister’s scent on the breeze blowing in. “Holy crap, you’re pregnant.”

“I am.” She cocked her head at him. “So nice of you to notice. I figured you should come and find out from us instead of Marley down at Pick-n-Pay.”

He hugged his sister. But there was something else. She didn’t hug him the way she normally did. He leaned out of her hug. “Is everything okay?”

“Well . . . I want to talk to you about Mom.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Flint focused on not gripping little Milo.

His mother was the acolyte of the most powerful witch in the world. Or as he called her, Aunt Carol. Together they had bound the powers of their children to hide them from the witches. When the war came and the warring coven cursed his father, neither his mother nor his aunt did anything about it. They continued hiding and let his dad wander off into the woods, stuck in his wolf form, his human mind lost. And years later, when their children’s power was unbound, they expected them to welcome the power with open arms.

He hadn’t asked for this power, and he certainly didn’t want it. They could have saved his father, but instead they hid. No, he didn’t want anything to do with magic, if it caused you to turn on the ones you were supposed to love the most.

5

Emma walked slowly around the dot on the floor, her eyes closed, her shoulders relaxed. She’d forgotten to get the energy back she’d shed onto firefighter Larsen. But it didn’t matter. She’d rebuild her energy and try again tomorrow. The weather had broken this morning, and it being a Saturday, she’d decided to walk instead of driving. Now she wished she’d been less energetic this morning. Too late for that now. She’d never seen a cab in the area, and her rideshare app didn’t even register out here. The screen turned a bright red when she tried to open it in Hundsburg.

She tidied up her space, used the little magic she had left to pull the rest of the windows shut, and locked up the old school. The wards back in place, she checked her phone. A bit of guilt tugged at her for not texting Carter to let him know what had happened. But it had all worked out, and she could wait until Monday to tell him.

Outside, the February wind was picking up as the sun set. Cutting through the woods and using the fire station driveway would cut off a sizable chunk of the trip. But running into any of the firefighters didn’t sound like the way she wanted to end her day. Old Emma spent a lot of time going to bars and clubs on the weekend. But this job Carter had offered her was new Emma, and new Emma wasn’t going to fall into old Emma’s habits. She’d lived in Hundsburg for six weeks, and she didn’t have friends in town yet. She’d moved in two weeks before Christmas. And now Groundhog Day had come and gone. It was a little hard to make friends when your boss kept reminding you not to tell anyone what was going on in the building. And the entire town was curious about what was happening in their old school building. The citizens of Hundsburg felt entitlement when it came to the place.

Emma wandered down the street, her cat-shaped backpack over her shoulder. When she was in view of the fire station, she hid behind a telephone pole and peered around it to check their driveway. More often than not lately, there had been an engine sitting in the middle with hoses draped around. Or there were five to seven males crawling around it with polishing cloths.

Emma ducked her head around the pole. The silly engine sat in the middle of the driveway, and there were males on it. Goddess. Not men. Shifter males, with big barrel chests, and muscle on their muscles. She wished she had more power to make herself invisible now or distract them with something. Fortunately, none of them were the ones who’d come into the school house. And she was both relieved and disappointed.

You can do this. She pushed her shoulders back and stepped out in a parade-like forced march, one that said “I’m a boss-ass bitch and you don’t want to talk to me, anyway”. The last time she’d walked by, she’d waved, they’d waved, and that had been it. But now it felt more like an assault.

She let the chant ring. You can do this, you can do this. Right, left, right . . . She kept her head straight.

“Nice night for a walk,” came from the driveway.

She nodded and waved. “Yes. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

She turned toward the voice. A male sat at the end of the truck. He hadn’t been one of the ones to come to the alarm. And he was good-looking. Ten times hotter than her last boyfriend. Fiancé. She’d almost married Sean. Heck, she’d been on her bachelorette party trip when she figured out he’d cheated on her.

The firefighter swung his legs over the side of the truck. Why did all the males working next door have to be so handsome? This guy was calendar ready, but nowhere near as hot as grumpy Mr. Larsen with his brown eyes and dark hair.

“Watch out,” he called to her.

Emma stepped around the fire station sign at the last minute, catching the side of it with her shoulder instead of the middle of her head. “Goddess.” She stopped walking. “Thank you.”

The sandy-blond-haired male had jumped down off the truck and charged her way. “You okay?”